How Microsoft decided to bet on Windows 8 for tablets — Microsoft's Michael Angiulo (left) and Steven Sinofsky show off Windows 8 at the company's Build conference in September. — Pitting product groups against one another is almost as much a part of Microsoft's culture as complaining …

Julian Assange loses extradition appeal — High court judges rule the WikiLeaks founder should face accusations of rape in Sweden — The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has lost his high court appeal against extradition to Sweden to face rape allegations.

AOL Beats Estimates, Posts Another Sales Ad Increase — Here's a first look at AOL Q3 earnings: Revenue of $532 million an earnings loss of $0.02 per share; Wall Street estimates for the company tend to be all over the map but Yahoo Finance thinks the consensus was $524 million and a loss of $0.06 per share.

Video: The Steve Jobs '95 Interview, Unabridged — Computerworld — In 1995, Steve Jobs was on the cusp of middle age — 40 years old — when he sat down for an extensive and revealing one-on-one interview by the Computerworld Information Technology Awards Foundation as part of an oral history project.

Could Google TV get its Kindle Fire moment? — Google started to distribute version 2.0 of its Google TV software this past weekend. One feature of the new version hasn't gotten much press yet, even though it could be key for the future of both Google TV and the connected TV space in general …

You Can Now Delete Your Klout Profile — Last week, Klout announced a new algorithm that drastically impacted Klout scores for thousands of users. It was also discovered that Klout collects user data from social media users on Facebook who never opted-in to Klout.

Dear Apple, it's about time for a Game Store — Open the App store right now. — Take a look at the top 25 free apps right now. Look carefully. Yes, most of them are games. — In the screenshot below taken a couple of days ago 15 of the top 25 apps are games. 1 category for more than half of the hits.

Big Brands Like Facebook, But They Don't Like to Pay — Everybody wants to be liked. The question for Facebook Inc. is how much advertisers are willing to pay for the opportunity. — The centerpiece of Ford Motor Co.'s online campaign for the 2012 Focus was a free Facebook page hosted …

Reader redesign: Terrible decision, or worst decision? — Full disclosure: I am an ex-PM on Google Reader, and I worked on comments and the last round of sharing changes. I also left Google in July. — Google released the previously announced set of changes around G+ integration and UI updates today, and boy is it a disaster.

The Long Haul to Capitalizing on Web Trends — Web companies often upend industries. But they can labor for years to fully make money on their revolutions. — Take Google Inc. When the Internet titan came onto the scene in the 1990s, the company first focused on building technologies …

Yahoo Pitching Plan to Private Equity — Yahoo Inc. is pitching private-equity firms on an arrangement in which they could take a minority stake in the Internet company while effectively gaining control, people familiar with the matter said. — The “leveraged recapitalization” …

Adobe Moves Deeper Into the Ad Business — Adobe is the company that powers much of the digital publishing world, and it's also the company behind Flash, the Web video standard. And it's also the company that's quietly positioning itself to become a major player in Web advertising.

Introducing Twitter Stories — Stories.twitter.com — Today we're launching the first in a series of Twitter stories. Read about a single Tweet that helped save a bookstore from going out of business; an athlete who took a hundred of his followers out to a crab dinner; and …

Researchers Flood Facebook With Bots, Collect 250GB Of User Data — In an experiment that reveals as much about the people on Facebook as it does about Facebook itself, researchers from the Unversity of British Columbia Vancouver infiltrated the social network with bots and made off with information from thousands of users.

Revolutions on the Internet — I hate to wade into such a sterile debate as whether social media helps revolutions, but I made a point about it recently at a conference and people seemed to like it, so I thought I'd put it up here for posterity. — Jon Elster has a four-phase theory of revolutions:

Gmail's new look — Back in July we showed you a preview of Gmail's new look, and we've been working this summer to make even more updates and improvements. Today, we're giving you an in-depth look at the new design. If you like what you see, over the next few days you'll be able to switch …

Microsoft goes HTML5 with new Bing for Mobile Hybrid Apps — Microsoft is pushing out new Bing for Mobile apps in the next day that are built on HTML5 and blend the best of native apps with a robust mobile web experience. Bing for Mobile Hybrid Apps will allow user to get a consistent experience across …

Steel In Their Eyes - Why VC's Should Be Startup CEO's — A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. — Mark Twain — Venture Capitalists who are serious about turning their firms into more than one-fund wonders may want to have their associates actually start and run a company for a year.

2018 Top 100 Global Tech Leaders — 21st century technology-sector leadership requires more than financial success. It also requires a commitment to compliance, innovation, and much more. Who are today's leaders?